Interpreter of MaladiesStories

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning character portraits lose none of their impact in audio
Read without an ounce of cynicism by Matilda Novak, the spare prose of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning debut collection of short stories comes off with a sort of enthusiastically sad whimsy. This is not to say, however, that the close character portraits in Interpreter of Maladies lose any of their (deservedly-praised) impact in the transition from print to audio.

Lahiri’s stories cut across a wide spectrum of human interaction: a couple in the last gasps of a disintegrating marriage; a child’s first true experience of faith and loss; a mother who discovers the intimate effect of near-anonymity while on vacation with her family. Despite their differences, all of Lahiri’s characters share the burden of the immigrant experience in the latter half of the 20th century. She invites us to share the frustrations of those adjusting to life half way around the world, the disconnect between parents and their US-born children, and the difficulties of true assimilation when matters of cultural heritage come in to play.

Six hours seems almost too little time to fully immerse oneself in Lahiri’s carefully and precisely crafted worlds, but Interpreter of Maladies is a beautiful introduction to the themes that this stunningly talented writer would later explore more deeply in her first novel, The Namesake.